Tag Archives: United States Politics and Government

When it comes to the federal payroll, two seemingly contradictory things are true. One, the Biden administration went on a hiring spree that expanded the government work force at the fastest pace since the 1980s. And two, it remains near a record low as a share of overall employment. In the four years separating President-elect Donald J. Trump’s two terms, …

President-elect Donald J. Trump has picked Brandon Williams, a former Navy officer and one-term congressman, to become the keeper of the nation’s arsenal of thousands of nuclear bombs and warheads. Mr. Trump’s selection is a shift from a tradition in which the people who served as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration typically had deep technical roots or experience …

Daniel Werfel, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, told the agency’s employees that he would end his term early and step down on Monday as President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office. Mr. Trump has said he plans to nominate Billy Long, a former Republican congressman, to the role. Past presidents have treated the tax collector’s leader as a nonpartisan …

When the Social Security Administration signed a five-year extension of work-from-home arrangements for tens of thousands of employees in early December, many at the agency expressed relief. But the reprieve may be short-lived. At a news conference two weeks later, President-elect Donald J. Trump railed against the deal and said he would go to court to undo it. “If people …

That would slow the growth of the government’s spending on obesity drugs even as more people on Medicare started using them. New prices for the 10 drugs in the first round of price negotiations were announced last summer. Those prices will go into effect next year. Drugmakers were relieved that those cuts were not deeper. They have sued, unsuccessfully, to …

Seven years ago, when Republicans passed the most significant overhaul of the tax code in a generation, they were sure the law would supercharge investment, raise wages and shift the American economy into a higher gear. So did it? The answer, at least for now, is largely lost to history. A pandemic and a surge in inflation convulsed the global …

Of all the government agencies that President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to shrink or eliminate, perhaps none has been a greater target than the Environmental Protection Agency. During the first Trump administration, the nation’s top regulator of air and water pollution and industrial chemicals saw its budget slashed, leading to an exodus of employees and weakened enforcement of environmental …

At their confirmation hearings on Wednesday, the two men in line to oversee the United States’ global energy policies, Senator Marco Rubio and the fossil fuel executive Chris Wright, are expected to assail President Biden as overly concerned with climate change. According to a spokeswoman, Mr. Wright, who was picked to lead the Department of Energy, will say that Mr. …

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a leading Democrat from a critical battleground state, on Wednesday subtly warned against President-elect Donald J. Trump’s tariff threats targeting Canada, even as she stressed her broader willingness to work with him on the cusp of his second inauguration. Her speech, at the Detroit Auto Show, offered among the clearest examples yet of how Democrats …

The Biden administration unveiled a proposal on Wednesday to cut the level of nicotine in cigarettes, a last-minute push on a plan that could meaningfully cut cancer rates nationwide and extend the lives of millions of cigarette smokers. If finalized, the proposal would require cigarette makers to significantly reduce the levels of nicotine in their products in an effort to …